I stare at him. ‘Careful, Danil,’ I say.

Zoric shakes his head. ‘You looked us in the eyes and told us she was dead,’ he says. ‘We stood together on the Pandion’s observation deck and gave her memory up to the stars. We mourned her. Bid her goodbye. And all the while you had her hidden in the underdecks. Hidden from us.’

The memory rushes back, overwhelming. Standing under all of those tiny lights as we sent a casket containing Sofika’s weapons out to spend eternity amongst the stars. Zoric and Yumia didn’t say a word. They let me speak the eulogy because of what Sofika was to me. And with every utterance my heart grew colder, until it felt like little more than a mountain stone.

‘I don’t need to explain myself to you,’ I tell him.

‘No,’ he says, his voice hard-edged with anger. ‘You don’t. Because it’s obvious why you did it. You’re going to tell me it’s about finding the Conduit. That it’s about duty. But it’s not. Not entirely. You kept Sofika alive because you couldn’t bear to let her go, because you love her. And you kept it a secret from the two of us because you blame yourself for what happened.’

‘Because it was my fault!’

I don’t mean to say it, much less shout it. The words just roll up like a storm front. Like thunder. Unstoppable. In the wake of them I feel as though I can breathe more easily. As though the air has changed to make way for rain. Zoric has changed, too. When he speaks again, his voice has lost all of its edges.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he says.

I shake my head. ‘I led you all to Hellebore on the promise of my dreams,’ I tell him.

‘Because you believed it,’ he says. ‘We all did. None of us saw the truth of it. The danger.’

‘You aren’t meant to,’ I say, my voice hoarse. ‘Nor is Yumia, or Sofika. I am the one who is meant to see. To prevent death, and destruction.’

I look down at my hands. At the blood dried into the creases of them. Some of it mine. Some of it theirs.

‘I felt it,’ I tell him. ‘From the moment we set foot on Hellebore I knew that something was wrong, but I pressed on regardless because I so desperately wanted to be right. Because I swore to Sofika long ago that we would find the Conduit, together. But I was wrong. I led you all into darkness and I almost got Sofika killed because I allowed myself to be fooled. The Resonance. The Conduit. It was all a lie.’ I shake my head again. ‘It was all what they wanted me to see.’